Saturday, February 17, 2007

We are eventually going to see some form of national health care, probably under the coming Obama, Clinton, Edwards, or Richardson Administration (depends upon which one of these fine candidates wins).

I think that national health care will invigorate capitalism not harm it. If every person is covered, either by a national plan or private insurance, then we will be a healthier nation. There will be cost savings because people won't wait to go to the doctor or the E.R. until they are in a very bad way, when it is most expensive to treat them.

Workers will be more willing to change jobs, no longer afraid to lose health coverage. Entrepreneurs will have one obstacle removed from leaving their jobs and creating a new business. They will have health care, regardless if they fail.

I think the collective relief national health care will evoke will provide economic and creative impetus that will do wonders for not just the working people of our nation, but those who will take a chance to start businesses that will create more jobs.

Fortunately we won't have to find out what happens under one of those Democrat administrations in '08 (that is, unless the Republicans are stupid enough to nominate McCain or Giuliani), but as spineless as most Republicans are these days, we might not need one to get nationalized health care.

Todd's scenario on a NHS might work in a perfect world (the one socialists want), but then socialist ideals always work well in their minds, but never do in the real world.

The reason it won't work is because of the very thing Todd said: "...people won't wait to go to the doctor or the E.R. until they are in a very bad way..." No, they'll go anytime they feel the slightest sniffle or headache, just like they do in countries that have a NHS (England, Canada, etc). That will make costs go into orbit, not to mention the time you have to wait for treatment.

These statements I make aren't just based on a guess about human nature and how socialism "might work." There are all the examples we need in the two countries I mentioned above. Statistics show it, and I've seen it first hand. Bloated, bureaucratic systems that suck money light a black hole and inefficiencies that frustrate people and leave some to die waiting for treatment.

Portability for health insurance would be a good thing, but I'm not sure how you'd bring it off in the real world...again, without even more government intervention than we already have.

But thanks for the feedback, Todd. You're one of the most rational Leftists I know.

Bob Ellis' column of Feb. 13 is typical of the right-wing, mean-spirited attitude so prevalent in South Dakota, especially West River.

Ellis claims the Legislature shouldn't 'monkey with our health care system.' Citing figures from the Heritage Foundation (that figures), Ellis says the 'free market' is the best form of health care. Furthermore, Mr. Ellis and his ilk will be the first to tell you how wonderful the 'free market' is for paying workers far less than a living wage, with no health coverage. The upshot of this philosophy is, if you can afford health care (or food), fine, if not, tough.

Can't these right-wing Republicans be honest (just once) about where they're really at? They believe it's a dog-eat-dog world and as long as they get theirs, to hell with everyone else. Instead, they cloak their selfishness in flowery phrases about the 'free market,' while attacking the poor and working poor as too stupid to take care of themselves.

The current health care system is a disaster for a lot of people, Mr. Ellis, and it's precisely because of your wonderful 'free market' that so many are without health care in this country.

MARILYN HANSONBlack Hawk

Curses, foiled again! And I would have gotten away with advocating the oppression of all the huddled masses if it hadn't been for this lady...and Scooby Doo, of course.

Actually, I had to chuckle at her accusation that I seemed to be trying to hide something. How much more up front could I have been about my advocacy of a free market system? And flowery? I thought only a died-in-the-wool economist could possibly consider "free market" a flowery term.

I do wonder, though, why socialists like this lady can't be honest (just once) about their adoration for Karl Marx and his philosophy. It's obvious in this piece, yet she just can't bring herself to profess her love for Marx.

Oh, and it's socialists who think people are too stupid to take care of themselves. People doing for themselves, rather than relying on government to do it for them, is exactly what I advocated in my column. This lady can't even manage to stay consistent in her hatred for the free market.

Friday, February 16, 2007

Another case of homosexual political correctness run amok. From LifeSite:

Nurses and other health care professionals should avoid using the terms ‘mom’ and ‘dad’ to refer to family relationships since the terms could be offensive to homosexual couples with children, a new directive published by Scotland’s National Health Service recommends.

Here's a novel idea: why not avoid offending the 97-99% of people who believe their sex organs should be used in ways that tend to produce children by calling them "mom" and "dad" where appropriate, and just get a fresh grip on reality?

In a scene reminiscent of the heroism of United Flight 93 on 9/11, crew and passengers of an Air Mauritania jet beat an armed hijacker in a plot hatched by the captain.

After realizing the hijacker, 32-year-old Mohamed Abderraman, did not speak French, the pilot flying the Boeing 737 told passengers over the intercom system he planned to make their landing in the Spanish Canary Islands especially rough in an attempt to knock down the hijacker. Then, he instructed, male passengers and crew should rush the cockpit and overwhelm the man.

Instead of examining what they might have done to make this hijacker angry, how his ancestry might have been filled with oppression by their own ancestors, cowering in fear in the hopes he would just leave them alone if they left him alone...instead of any of that malarkey, these passengers fought back!

Most of the Democrats in this country could learn a thing or two from these passengers.

This should be obvious when you think about it, because there are vastly different worldviews at work here. Christians are guided by revealed truth and the wisdom of the past—what's often called the democracy of the dead. And we recognize original sin as the fundamental state of human nature, and so we are distrustful of big institutions. Moreover, Christians believe that they have a personal duty to help the poor, because the Bible commands it and because we understand that society's problems are morally rooted and, thus, more likely to need moral solutions. So, we are involved in creating what Edmund Burke called the 'little platoons' of society: organizations devoted to feeding the hungry, freeing slaves, and helping those in prison.

By contrast, the secular liberal rejects the idea of original sin. He believes that with the right education and enough money, the lot of humanity can be improved. So liberals believe that, with their superior wisdom, they can create utopia—just give them the power—which is why they believe in big-government solutions to society's problems, solutions that we now know have done more harm than good.

When it comes down to it, liberals are only more generous when they've reached into your pocket for that generosity. And the reason for that comes down to spiritual worldview.

The 1997 Kyoto treaty requires signatory nations to set limits on the emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other 'greenhouse gases' blamed for climate change, by an average of five percent by 2012.

The 15 European nations participating at the time - the so-called E.U.-15 - made a commitment to collectively reduce their emissions to the point where they would be eight percent lower than 1990 levels.

Since the treaty went into effect, however, Europe's CO2 emissions have increased quite substantially - and at a rate three times faster than America's - Horner said. At the same time, Kyoto-related regulations have led to higher energy costs for E.U.-15 citizens.

According to MyWay news, singer Ricky Martin recently gave President Bush the middle finger while singing a song that referenced him.

He is unapologetic.

"I will always condemn war and those who promulgate it," Martin said

I guess what I wonder is whether Martin has a similar reaction to terrorists in Iraq, terrorists who blow up buses and restaurants in Israel, people who blow up our embassies around the world, countries like Iran and North Korea who fund terrorism and want to build nukes, and other cases like this.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

It's a FrontPage Magazine article on "political Islam" and why most of us infidels just don't get it.

Since Islam has a dualistic logic and dualistic ethics, it is completely foreign to us. Muslims think differently from us and feel differently from us. So our aversion is based upon fear and a rejection of Islamic ethics and logic. This aversion causes us to avoid learning about Islam so we are ignorant and stay ignorant.

Another part of the aversion is the realization that there is no compromise with dualistic ethics. There is no halfway place between unitary ethics and dualistic ethics. If you are in a business deal with someone who is a liar and a cheat, there is no way to avoid getting cheated. No matter how nice you are to a con man, he will take advantage of you. There is no compromise with dualistic ethics. In short, Islamic politics, ethics and logic cannot be part of our civilization. Islam does not assimilate, it dominates. There is never any “getting along” with Islam. Its demands never cease and the demands must be met on Islam’s terms: submission.

The fact that we don't get it (Islam) is why we continue to suffer humiliating defeats at the hands of terrorists, and why we continue to be humiliated in our Middle East dealings. It's because we refuse to understand or accept that we're dealing with people that have a different ethical system.

This explained earlier in the piece:

Warner: The term “human being” has no meaning inside of Islam. There is no such thing as humanity, only the duality of the believer and unbeliever. Look at the ethical statements found in the Hadith. A Muslim should not lie, cheat, kill or steal from other Muslims. But a Muslim may lie, deceive or kill an unbeliever if it advances Islam.

There is no such thing as a universal statement of ethics in Islam. Muslims are to be treated one way and unbelievers another way. The closest Islam comes to a universal statement of ethics is that the entire world must submit to Islam. After Mohammed became a prophet, he never treated an unbeliever the same as a Muslim. Islam denies the truth of the Golden Rule.

This is why the whole "Middle East peace" thing never gets solved. It's also why Americans and Israelis are foolish to negotiate with terrorists. The only way to achieve peace with Islamic terrorists is to wipe them out.

On September 12, 2001, I thought maybe President Bush understood this. But since then, he's proven me wrong at almost every turn.

Parents who send your kids to public schools, you should take note of this statement because this philosophy isn't just confined to Massachusetts. You'll find it all across the country, and even here in South Dakota.

'Once I have elected to send my child to public school, my fundamental right does not allow me to direct what my child is exposed to in the public school,' said the school's lawyer.

This story and case was prompted by a father's objection to the school teaching his elementary school age son about homosexuality and transgenderism.

The article further states

An ACLU lawyer, however, told the judge that "it is a tremendous bonus" for children to be given information of which their parents wouldn't approve, and that teaching children homosexuality when their parents' Biblical beliefs do not support that has nothing to do with a violation of religious freedom

My wife and I have a lot of reasons for homeschooling, and garbage like this is just one of them.

A Washington Post piece by Robert J. Samuelson illustrates how the welfare state dominates spending in the US:

The table shows the rise of the American welfare state. In 1956, defense dominated the budget; the Cold War buildup was in full swing. The welfare state, which is what 'payments to individuals' signifies, was modest. Now everything is reversed. Despite the war in Iraq, defense spending is only a fifth of the budget; so-called entitlement payments to individuals are almost 60 percent -- and rising. In fiscal 2006, the federal government spent almost $2.7 trillion. Social Security ($544 billion), Medicare ($374 billion) and Medicaid ($181 billion) dominated. There was $199 billion more for payments to the poor, including the earned-income tax credit and food stamps.

Defense is one of the few constitutional duties of the United States government, yet handouts and doing for people what they should be doing for themselves has become our greatest priority.

What a pansy. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) didn't like Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) smoking in his own office. Rather than do what most people might do ("Excuse me, Rep. Tancredo, but your smoke is bothering me."), he calls the cops.

Soon enough, however, a police officer walked in to check on the smoke. The officer told Tancredo that the officer came because he was required to do so and not because the officer wanted to. The officer had already told Ellison that Tancredo was permitted to smoke in his office. The visit was more a formality - The Hill.

The article goes on to say Tancredo uses three air air purifiers in his office in consideration of others. Yet Ellison claims the smoke somehow came "through the walls."

I wonder what Ellison would have done if Tancredo had experienced a particularly offensive, um, "outgassing?"

'The ad that the department submitted was specific to Border Patrol, and it mentioned terrorism. We were not comfortable with that,' said Greg Aiello, a spokesman for the NFL. 'The borders, the immigration debate is a very controversial issue, and we were sensitive to any perception we were injecting ourselves into that.'

And of all genres, the super-macho world of football, can't even bring itself to assert the justness of protecting our national borders and enforcing our own laws.

The Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality hearing scheduled for Wednesday, February 14, 2007, at 10:00 a.m. in room 2123 Rayburn House Office Building has been postponed due to inclement weather. The hearing is entitled “Climate Change: Are Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Human Activities Contributing to a Warming of the Planet?”

The hearing will be rescheduled to a date and time to be announced later.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

LifeNews.com cites a British report that shows the pro-abortion cry for contraception blah blah is hollow and useless:

A new British report finds that abortions are occurring there despite the general availability of contraception. Abortion advocates frequently cite making contraception and birth control more available as the best answer for reducing abortions, but the study shows that's not happening.

The report, sponsored by the contraception maker Schering Health Care finds that women in their late 20s and 30s are having abortions at the same rate as teenagers.That's surprising to birth control backers because older women are thought to be better able to afford contraception and understand how to use it.

However, almost half of the women who got pregnant in the study reported they were not using any form of contraception at the time of their pregnancy or had forgotten to take their birth control pills on a regular basis.

In short, socialized medicine under the National Health Service in the UK isn't stopping abortions. Abortion is being used as birth control.

The ones claiming that if only we taught kids more about sex and gave them free contraception, that would stop abortions...they're full of baloney, and this proves it.

We already dispense free condoms at many schools across the country. We already tell kids about sex (they get tons of exposure to sex from TV, music, and other kids, not to mention what they're officially taught in school) to the point that you'd have to be pretty stupid not to know what happens when you put Part A with Part B.

The call for greater contraception and sex ed is just an attempt to further sexualize our kids and ensure Planned Parenthood has a never-ending market for their abortion services.

During the Monday edition of CNN's Situation Room, Jack Cafferty discussed U.S. allegations that Iraqi militants are killing American soldiers with weapons provided by Iran. At the conclusion of the 'Cafferty File' segment, the CNN host engaged in the always reliable media tradition of moral equivalence, comparing Iran's action to U.S. support of Afghan rebels in the 1980s. Apparently, the fact that America was opposing the brutal Russian regime, whereas, in this case, Iran is the oppressive entity, makes no difference.

Cafferty asserted: 'Reminiscent, Wolf, of the war in Afghanistan, when Russia invaded. It seems to me we were, the United States was supplying weapons and intelligence and things like that to the Afghan rebels.' Blitzer then recalled: 'The Mujahideen, a lot. Through the CIA, through the Saudis, Those shoulder-fired missiles which brought down a lot of Soviet helicopters.' Cafferty saw no difference with what the U.S. did: 'So, that was okay but it's not okay if Iran -- I'm, I'm confused, Wolf.'

Yeah, I bet you're confused. If you can't figure out the difference between the US and a bunch of barbarians like the Iranians, you're confused. If you can't figure out the difference between the US and a bunch of totalitarian Soviets, you're confused.

That or you're just a card-carrying member of the Blame America First club. Or both.

According to Investors Business Daily, Canadian Prime Minister Harper catches the "heat" of global warming disciples for daring to question their orthodoxy:

Opponents of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who heads Canada's minority conservative government, have seized upon remarks he made in a 2002 fundraising letter to blast his leadership on the issue of climate change.

In that letter, Harper described the Kyoto Protocol as 'a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations.' He voiced his support for the 'campaign to block the job-killing, economy-destroying Kyoto accord,' an agreement he said was 'based on tentative and contradictory scientific evidence about climate trends.'

So is Harper just another Right-wing radical?

Agreeing with him are 60 leading scientists who in April wrote Harper an open letter, published in the Canadian Financial Post, asking him to keep his pledge to review Canada's commitment to the Kyoto Protocol.

"Global climate," said the scientists, "changes all the time due to natural causes, and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural 'noise.'

"If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist because we would have concluded it was not necessary."

They add that "activists (attempt) to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified."

The US has also caught the heat of international global warming disciples for not hopping onboard the Kyoto Train. So how are those riding the Kyoto Train doing in reducing these evil emissions?

Kyoto committed Canada to cutting emissions of greenhouse gases by 6% from 1990 levels by 2012. Emissions are about 35% above the target and continue to rise. It's a nearly impossible job. The European Union, which made similar pledges, has failed to meet its targets. Its CO2 emissions are rising twice as fast as those of the heretical U.S. since Kyoto.

So is Kyoto Marxist?

Karl Marx once said the goal of communism was a system that extracted from each according to his ability to give to each according to his need. Come to think of it, Kyoto says the same thing.

Homosexuality hurts the one practicing it and it hurts others who fall into that sphere, not to mention the loved ones of the homosexual who see them living such a destructive lifestyle.

But if I was, say, an alcoholic and a drunk driver, if I could just force people to stop condemning me for it, if I could just keep people from from saying it's a bad thing, if I could just get people to accept the notion that alcoholics can't change, then I could drink and drive in peace and feel good about myself.

Raina told the Hindustan Times that out of 9,575 glaciers in India, till date, research has been conducted only on about 50. Nearly 200 years data has shown that nothing abnormal has occurred in any of these glaciers.

It is simple. The issue of glacial retreat is being sensationalised by a few individuals, the septuagenarian Raina claimed. Throwing a gauntlet to the alarmist, he said the issue should be debated threadbare before drawing a conclusion.

This whole global warming hysteria is just anti-business and anti-Western hype.

Iran will be able to develop enough weapons-grade material for a nuclear bomb and there is little that can be done to prevent it, an internal European Union document has concluded.

In an admission of the international community’s failure to hold back Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the document – compiled by the staff of Javier Solana, EU foreign policy chief – says the atomic programme has been delayed only by technical limitations rather than diplomatic pressure. “Attempts to engage the Iranian administration in a negotiating process have not so far succeeded,” it states."

There's one thing that can prevent it. Hint: it's that thing liberals say has never accomplished anything (despite the Revolutionary War, World War II, etc.) If you haven't guessed it yet: war.

We and/or the Israelis can bomb them back into the stone age that's commensurate with their disposition and then we won't have to worry about them getting nukes.

The EU admission above is just the latest illustration that when you try diplomacy with tyrants and barbarians, you're wasting your time and strengthening them. It's called appeasement, and you can find it listed under "Neville Chamberlain" prior to World War II.

I believe I blogged on this some time back, but WorldNetDaily has an update on the story about how some people are trying to erase evidence of America's Christian heritage--right in the US capital.

WND earlier reported on his documentation of the other representations of the Ten Commandments in the Supreme Court Building, the importance society at that time placed on the laws of Moses and the general recognition during that era by courts of the Ten Commandments as the basis for much of the U.S. law.

However, DuBord said he never got a response to his request, which was mailed and faxed to Court Information Officer Kathy Arberg, that the Supreme Court reconsider, and so he's documented additional evidence that he believes should convince officials of the validity of his request for the change.

A stone relief that is clearly a representation of the Ten Commandments has been renamed in official literature as the "Ten Amendments."

"If you look at our website there are pages of information on architectural detail, including a description of the tablets over the bench. According to the correspondence between the sculptor and the architect, it is the ten amendments," she said.

Our nation's capital is so rich in evidence of America's Christian heritage that it stands to reason those who contend that heritage never existed would attempt to rewrite history.

According to Investors Business Daily, Canadian Prime Minister Harper catches the "heat" of global warming disciples for daring to question their orthodoxy:

Opponents of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who heads Canada's minority conservative government, have seized upon remarks he made in a 2002 fundraising letter to blast his leadership on the issue of climate change.

In that letter, Harper described the Kyoto Protocol as 'a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations.' He voiced his support for the 'campaign to block the job-killing, economy-destroying Kyoto accord,' an agreement he said was 'based on tentative and contradictory scientific evidence about climate trends.'

So is Harper just another Right-wing radical?

Agreeing with him are 60 leading scientists who in April wrote Harper an open letter, published in the Canadian Financial Post, asking him to keep his pledge to review Canada's commitment to the Kyoto Protocol.

"Global climate," said the scientists, "changes all the time due to natural causes, and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural 'noise.'

"If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist because we would have concluded it was not necessary."

They add that "activists (attempt) to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified."

The US has also caught the heat of international global warming disciples for not hopping onboard the Kyoto Train. So how are those riding the Kyoto Train doing in reducing these evil emissions?

Kyoto committed Canada to cutting emissions of greenhouse gases by 6% from 1990 levels by 2012. Emissions are about 35% above the target and continue to rise. It's a nearly impossible job. The European Union, which made similar pledges, has failed to meet its targets. Its CO2 emissions are rising twice as fast as those of the heretical U.S. since Kyoto.

So is Kyoto Marxist?

Karl Marx once said the goal of communism was a system that extracted from each according to his ability to give to each according to his need. Come to think of it, Kyoto says the same thing.

This is an, um, interesting story from the Taipei Times about a man who was granted a divorce from his wife of one year because she refused to consummate their marriage:

A Tainan court has granted a man's request for divorce because his wife was 'too shy' to consummate their marriage, a newspaper said yesterday.

I'm not normally an advocate of divorce, and would say that it would have been better if this marriage could have been saved. But just as the law recognizes, there was no valid marriage because it had not been consummated.

Incidentally, this is also another reason why the idea of two men or two women getting together and calling it "marriage" just doesn't cut the mustard.

Yes, two men or two women can engage in sexual activity together, but they cannot consummate a marriage because they are not bringing complimentary sex organs into concert with one another.

Sorry to be so graphic, but that's just what it comes down to. If you don't bring a penis and a vagina to the ballpark, then you don't have a game.

According to Fox News, a new report says Bank of America is giving credit cards to illegals:

In recent years, banks across the country have been offering checking accounts and even mortgages to the nation's fast-growing ranks of undocumented immigrants, most of whom are Hispanic, the paper said, adding these immigrants generally have not been able to get major credit cards.

I know for a fact that some--perhaps many--finance companies write loans to people who can't speak English--yet we're supposed to believe those people are here legally?

If our own American companies are so bereft of principle as to do business with people in our country illegally, I have to wonder if our nation has much of a future. A people so self-centered as to put our own laws and national security behind their personal gain are likely not going to remain a distinct "people" for much longer.

Monday, February 12, 2007

WorldNetDaily has a story about an interesting documentary that contends Charles Darwin should share in the blame for the Jewish Holocaust:

Titled 'Darwin’s Deadly Legacy,' the stunning documentary shows that Darwinian theory, 'which is scientifically bankrupt, has probably been responsible for more bloodshed than anything else in the history of humanity,' Jerry Newcomb, one of the program's two co-producers, told WorldNetDaily.

Before the advent of Darwinian beliefs, said Newcombe, the Western world's basic concept was that man was made in the image of God, and was therefore valuable. But Darwin changed all that.

'Karl Marx wouldn’t embrace all (Darwin’s) tenets, but said, 'This is a scientific theory on which we can base our theory of man,'' Newcomb told WND.

Makes perfect sense. If we're all just soulless animals, what does it matter if you kill somone...or annihilate an ethnic group of people for that matter. If there's no eternal destiny for them, and no eternal accountability for the killer, how can we say its "wrong?"

Under the current methodology which holds that the meaning Constitution is subject to the fickle position of a majority of Supreme Court justices, the statement that a proposed law is "constitutional" or "unconstitutional" is meaningless.

Before the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973, when 2/3 of the states outlawed abortion and allowed it only in a few circumstances, if you had asked if abortion was "constitutional," the answer would have been "no."

But with the 1973 Roe decision, without a new law or a single change to the U.S. Constitution, abortion suddenly became "constitutional."

So to say the proposed South Dakota abortion ban, HB 1293, is "unconstitutional" is a joke. Since it depends on the mood of the nine justices who will be sitting on the Supreme Court when the law gets there in a few years, we don't know whether it's "constitutional" or not.

If we were going by the clear meaning and intent of the Constitution (as we should), it would be easy to figure out if a law was constitutional. But liberals don't want to play that way; they want to establish law based on the mood and opinion of nine people.

So by the liberals own rules, HB 1293 isn't unconstitutional. We don't know what it is yet, so we might as well pass the law and see if it stands.

Regarding the new South Dakota abortion ban, I also find it hypocritical that some of the same people who claim abortion is a "private" medical decision between a woman and her doctor are some of the same people who want government to run health care in this country?

So does government have a role in medicine or doesn't it?

The actual question comes down to this: does government have a role in protecting innocent human beings from being murdered? If unborn children are human beings--and science demonstrates the unborn have unique human DNA from conception onward--then government has a role in preventing their murder.

Most if not all of those who testified against the new abortion ban, HB 1293, today railed against government intrusion into a "private" area.

Funny how the abortion issue has caused liberals to sound like conservatives. It's normally conservatives who have a problem with government butting into people's private business. After all, conservatives don't like government forcing their kids to be taught evolution is fact, Christianity is a myth, being told a kangaroo rat takes precedence over their property rights, and so on.

But what these pro-abortion liberals completely ignore is that the first (and one of the few legitimate) role of government is to protect the innocent. If the unborn child is a human life--and science indicates that it is--then abortion is murder. And the prevention of murder should be at the top of the list of things government should do.

More dissent on the "settled science" of global warming. From the UK Times "An experiment that hints we are wrong on climate change:"

Twenty years ago, climate research became politicised in favour of one particular hypothesis, which redefined the subject as the study of the effect of greenhouse gases. As a result, the rebellious spirits essential for innovative and trustworthy science are greeted with impediments to their research careers. And while the media usually find mavericks at least entertaining, in this case they often imagine that anyone who doubts the hypothesis of man-made global warming must be in the pay of the oil companies. As a result, some key discoveries in climate research go almost unreported.

Enthusiasm for the global-warming scare also ensures that heatwaves make headlines, while contrary symptoms, such as this winter’s billion-dollar loss of Californian crops to unusual frost, are relegated to the business pages. The early arrival of migrant birds in spring provides colourful evidence for a recent warming of the northern lands. But did anyone tell you that in east Antarctica the Adélie penguins and Cape petrels are turning up at their spring nesting sites around nine days later than they did 50 years ago? While sea-ice has diminished in the Arctic since 1978, it has grown by 8% in the Southern Ocean.

So one awkward question you can ask, when you’re forking out those extra taxes for climate change, is “Why is east Antarctica getting colder?” It makes no sense at all if carbon dioxide is driving global warming. While you’re at it, you might inquire whether Gordon Brown will give you a refund if it’s confirmed that global warming has stopped. The best measurements of global air temperatures come from American weather satellites, and they show wobbles but no overall change since 1999.

Then I saw that it was from the New York Times, and said to myself, "Yep, I was right."

But it turns out I was wrong. The Times gave the issue--or at least the main person in the article--a fair hearing.

Dr. Marcus R. Ross, the main person in the article, is a "young-earth" paleontologist. Part of his studies were at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.

But Dr. Ross is hardly a conventional paleontologist. He is a “young earth creationist” — he believes that the Bible is a literally true account of the creation of the universe, and that the earth is at most 10,000 years old.

For him, Dr. Ross said, the methods and theories of paleontology are one “paradigm” for studying the past, and Scripture is another. In the paleontological paradigm, he said, the dates in his dissertation are entirely appropriate. The fact that as a young earth creationist he has a different view just means, he said, “that I am separating the different paradigms.”

He likened his situation to that of a socialist studying economics in a department with a supply-side bent. “People hold all sorts of opinions different from the department in which they graduate,” he said. “What’s that to anybody else?”

But not everyone is happy with that approach. “People go somewhat bananas when they hear about this,” said Jon C. Boothroyd, a professor of geosciences at Rhode Island.

So how did a paleontologist get a degree through the institution of the religion of evolution?

Asked whether it was intellectually honest to write a dissertation so at odds with his religious views, he said: “I was working within a particular paradigm of earth history. I accepted that philosophy of science for the purpose of working with the people” at Rhode Island.

And though his dissertation repeatedly described events as occurring tens of millions of years ago, Dr. Ross added, “I did not imply or deny any endorsement of the dates.”

I did something similar when I was in law enforcement many years ago and the promotion test asked the purpose of corrections (prisons), expecting of course the liberal answer, "To rehabilitate the offender." This is baloney, of course (it's to punish the offender), but I gave them the answer they wanted because to give the correct answer would have been attacking a windmill and potentially depriving myself of a promotion.

Evolutionists aren't adherents to science so much as they are disciples of naturalism, a philosophy that holds the belief that all causes and effects are "natural" (i.e. must happen within the bounds of the natural laws we currently observe). Naturalism posits that there can be no external or "supernatural" causes in our universe.

A very closed-minded philosophy, if God is real (which He is), since as creator of the natural laws of our universe, He would certainly be above them and not subject to them.

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Doubting Darwin and his theory of evolution isn't just for drooling Bible thumpers like me anymore. WorldNetDaily has a story of the growing list of scientists who doubt the viability of the theory of evolution:

The list truly is a "Who's Who" of prominent scientists in the world today, and now another 100 ranking leaders have added their signatures to a challenge to Darwin's theory of evolution.

It's for those who have reached the epitome of their fields, but still are questioning the validity of the Darwinian philosophy and want to put their concerns in writing.

The names include top scientists as MIT, UCLA, Ohio State, University of Washington, University of Pennsylvania, University of Georgia, Harvard, the College of Judea and Samaria, Johns Hopkins, Texas A&M, Duke, University of Peruglia in Italy, the British Museum and others.

"Darwinism is a trivial idea that has been elevated to the status of the scientific theory that governs modern biology," said Michael Egnor, a professor of neurosurgery and pediatrics at State University of New York, Stony Brook, and an award-winning brain surgeon who was picked as one of New York's top doctors by "New York Magazine."

The list represents the most educated people in the world from all branches of science with one thing on common – agreement with the following statement: "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."

There's some merit to the idea of evolution at first glance. But upon deeper examination, it just doesn't add up. Too many things it can't explain, and too much contradictory evidence in nature.

That's why it has become a religion: it's based largely on faith. In fact, it takes more faith to believe the claims of evolution an a naturalistic origin of the universe than it takes to believe God did it all.